Smooth Virtus Lagoon

Old English smōþ, level, polished — used as a color modifier since the seventeenth century for hues that read as continuous without texture or break. Smooth tan, smooth gray: moderate saturation combined with optical evenness. Sits in the crisp-bucket alongside even.

Latin virtus, manliness-and-courage-and-virtue. As a color modifier, virtus implies a Roman-virtus-and-stoic-and-Cardinal-Virtues quality, the visual register of Roman-virtus-and-Stoic-Cardinal-Virtues hand-Roman-virtus-and-stoic-and-Cardinal-Virtues Roman-virtus-and-Stoic-Cardinal-Virtues-and-Marcus-Aurelius virtus-and-Roman-virtus surfaces under Roman-virtus-and-Stoic-Cardinal-Virtues-and-Marcus-Aurelius Republican-Rome-and-Marcus-Aurelius Stoic-virtue-light. Sits at the modifier-and-Latin end of the grid, parallel to senex and dux in usage.

A shallow body of saltwater partially or fully enclosed by a barrier — coral atoll lagoons in the Pacific, Venice's Laguna Veneta, the Florida Keys' backcountry. The color refers to the average reflectance of a calm tropical lagoon at midday: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical clarity of shallow water over white sand. Brighter than reef, cooler than aquamarine, with the postcard weight of a Pacific atoll seen from above.